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In January 2012, fifteen year old me sat down and wrote her first blog post. It was a short, introduction that is probably the least helpful thing I have ever posted on this. But, it started something wonderful. Since then, I've never gone more than a few weeks without publishing a blog post. It's hard to describe but there's something therapeutic about sitting down with your laptop and letting all of the words out. I've always been quite a shy and introverted person. This has changed a lot since I started university but there are still times where I am still embarrassed by how painfully socially awkward I can be. But blogging gave me the chance to articulate on my thoughts in a way that I had control over. When I'm nervous I have a tendency to muddle up my words without even realising. But with blogging no one gets to read what I've written before I've planned out my words and proof read them. And that gave me a certain confidence that I ever had in person. I've never had anyone that I know in real life say anything nasty about my blog but one thing that someone said to me that's really stuck with me was 'I never knew you had so much to say'.

4 years later, so much has changed. Blogging has changed my life for the better. It's very easy to get wrapped up in the material side of blogging. Yes, blogging has gotten me a lot of free stuff. Jewellery, clothes, make up, dinners, trips, hotel stays etc etc. I used to keep a list of all the things I had received through my blog but honestly it got to be so much. But the real gem is the opportunities that blogging has given me and the people it has brought into my life. Some of my best friends are bloggers. In fact, I'm even going on holiday with one. Morag and I are going to Amsterdam on Valentines day and I am so super excited for it. Blogging has also changed me as a person. It's made me a lot more confident in myself and who I am. I don't feel like I have to take any steps to 'hide' the 'real me' on my blog and that it's somewhere I can totally be honest. And this has slowly, but surely, crept into my personal life. I would just like to thank everyone who has read my blog. Whether you read every post or just the odd post here and there. Thank you so much for your continued support. I really couldn't do it without all the love and support. 4 years in. I was a different person 4 years ago, and I can't wait to see who I am in 4 years time.

I may have stopped blogging by then but I don't think so. I still have so much more to say.

Hello everyone! After a short break from Sassy Books I am glad to report that we are back in business. Our read for January was Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain. This is a non fiction novel that explores introversion and how we view introverts in society. This book is under 300 pages but is very small font and the discussions are quite heavy so as a result I've found it to be quite a slow read. So I have to admit that I haven't actually finished the book. Oops! I've been reading this in 30 page slots as I've found that after that I begin to lose focus. I am really enjoying this I just want to take it slowly. That being said, this post will be more of a discussion about how I'm finding the book rather than a formal review.

I have always considered myself to be an introverted person. Growing up, I just thought I was weird. I was quiet, shy and often found myself wishing I could go home without seeming rude after I'd been with my friends for too long. It wasn't that I didn't like people or didn't want to spend time with them either it was just that sometimes after seeing people for too long I felt exhausted. When I first heard the 'definition' of the word introvert it made everything seem so clear. That was me, I am an introvert. This book has really helped me consider that and to see the benefits of being an introvert. Because in a world with an extroverted ideal it really does seem like a real flaw sometimes. The book talks about where our extrovert ideal comes from and also discusses what the definitions of extroversion and introversion are. This book discusses so much that it's really hard to sum everything up without giving too much away. Honestly, this book was just so refreshing at times. There were passages that I read and just thought 'oh my god, that just sums me up perfectly'.

So far, I've really enjoyed this book but I don't find it to be an easy or quick read. It's much more detailed and scientific than I thought it would be which I think makes it a much better book but makes it slower to read. I hope that everyone in the club has enjoyed it as well. Other posts written by other bloggers as part of #sassybooks are:

Next month our book will be It's Not Me, It's You by Mhairi McFarlane(Kindle link here) which we thought would make a fun, anti-Valentines kinda read. This book had been gaining a lot of interest amongst book bloggers at the moment as a lot of people are really enjoying it and finding that it's redefining chick lit, a genre I generally try to avoid! If you've like to join in you can read the book and post a review or just tweet about it using the hashtag #sassybooks. We will be posting our reviews on the last Tuesday of the month which this month will be February 23rd. I hope you all join in and love the book!

Hello everyone! I done a massive food shop before returning to Edinburgh for the semester and I had a tonne of veggies that I wasn't quite sure how I wanted to use. I decided that I'd be a bit creative and just wing it with my own soup recipe. I'm so glad I did because this is absolutely delicious! This recipe makes four servings and I am down to having one left in the freezer which is very sad because I don't want it to go! Soups are one of my favourite things to cook as they are so easy to adapt to whatever is in season or whatever you have in the house. And they're so easy to freeze and defrost later when you just fancy something quick and easy. This soup is butternut squash and sweet potato so is very warm and inviting. I think that roasting the vegetables first with garlic really helps add a lot of flavour to the soup and it's just perfect for a cold winter night!

Ingredients:

One butternut squash, peeled and chopped

One sweet potato, peeled and chopped

One large onion, peeled and chopped

3 cloves of garlic

1 teaspoon of chilli flakes

1 vegetable stock cube

Salt and pepper, to taste

Oil for roasting

Method:

Place all veg in a roasting pan, cover with oil and sprinkle on chilli flakes roast for 30 minutes at 180 degrees celsius.

Boil a pan full of water an dissolve your stock cube in it.

Add the roasted veg to the boiling water and simmer for another 10-15 minutes or until all the veg is soft.

Blend or leave chunky, depending on how you like your soup!

Season with salt and pepper to suit your own taste and then it's ready to be served! I like mine with crispy Scotch morning rolls and a tonne of butter. But obviously for a more healthy/vegan option you can just eat it on its own!

Hello everyone! Today is my 19th birthday. Which means, quite scarily, that I'm into my last year of being able to call myself a teenager. Before beginning the very interesting journey of being a twenty something girl trying to make it in industry. I had written a 101 Things in 1001 Days list and it was pretty unsuccessful, mostly because I changed a lot over those 1001 days and by the end I didn't even want to do half of those things anyway. So I thought it would be fun to do a '20 before 20' lists because with a smaller timescale I'm likely to be more determined/motivated to reach the goals! If people are interested I could maybe even do some sort of update post halfway through the year. So, these are the things I want to do before my teenage days are over:

1. Do a 24 hour digital detox.

2. Visit 5 museums.

3. Reach 75 sales on Etsy. (48/75)

4. Try out 10 new resaurants.

5. Try one new recipe every month. (3/12)

6. Read 5 more graphic novels. (2/5)

7. Continue swimming whilst at university.

8. Leave the country at least once.

9. Actually sort out a really good Halloween costume.

10. Keep blogging but do not put pressure on myself to write posts when I am not feeling like it.

11. Crochet 5 different animals that aren't elephants.

12. Do more work for exams during the semester.

13. Reread the Harry Potter books.

14. Use up five perfumes(and try not to acquire anymore).15. Buy that decluttering book and follow through with it.

Hello everyone! Sorry for not really posting this week. It's been my first week back at uni and things are already pretty hectic. Every week I read Jemma's Friday Five series and I really love them so I thought I would take a little inspiration from her and share a few lists. I don't know about you but I absolutely love writing lists. There's something so fun about it! Think I actually spend more time writing to do lists than I do actually being productive...

6 country songs I love:
1. Whiskey Girl by Toby Keith.
2. Before He Cheats by Carrie Underwood.
3. Should've Been A Cowboy by Toby Keith.
4. Something Like That by Tim McGraw.
5. It's Five O'Clock Somewhere by Alan Jackson.
6. This Kiss by Faith Hill.

Hello everyone. Today I'm reviewing a bath bomb from Lush's Christmas collection. I know it's a bit late but I love writing Lush reviews and it may be helpful if this comes back next year. Judging how popular this bath bomb seems to have been I wouldn't be surprised if it does make a second appearance. To be honest, over the last two years I've felt a bit let down by the Christmas selection of Lush. This year, Yog Nog was one of the only things I was really excited about trying out. Yog Nog soap was a common item in their Christmas range before but I don't really like to use soaps so I was really pleased to see it in surprise form.

For some reason my bath bomb seemed to be particularly crumbly but it normally has a lovely pattern on the front. The scent though is where this bath bomb really comes into its own. This smells so warm and spicy. It's actually how I imagine butter beer smelling! And Harry Potter always makes me think of Christmas. Kind of sweet but also cinnamon-y and spicy. Definitely a perfect scent. When it was in the bath it also carried a strong scent. The bath bomb has a 'core' so the water goes a rather bright yellow/green colour which I really wasn't expecting. The bath bomb must also contain some oils or something as it was very moisturising!

I really enjoyed using this, definitely one of my favourite new Lush products for a while. I'm sad that this was only limited edition for Christmas but hope it will be back soon!

Hello everyone. Today I'm going to be reviewing a book I read recently called Leave Your Mark by Aliza Licht. I had never heard of this book before Charlotte suggested it for one of our #sassybooks reads. We decided against making it the book of the month as the Kindle version is quite expensive. We try to find cheap books so that as many people as possible can join in. But when I had an Amazon voucher I was just too tempted and this book made its way into my basket. This book is all about careers and social media. Whilst I only have a part time job alongside university and my job, I'm still a forward thinker and I need all the help I can get. So I was very excited to start reading this.

The book starts off with the author telling you her own career story and expanding on what she learnt at each stage along the way. I really enjoyed this because it felt like part autobiography part self help book. So it wasn't all advice being thrown at you left right and centre. Aliza has a very nice writing style that is chatty and personal in the right places and takes a more serious tone when necessary. One thing that I found a bit weird was when she is explaining past conversations they sounded very well thought out. It didn't strike me as a normal conversation. Although this could just be down to the differences in the way that British and American people speak. Apart from this I found the book to be great. It really followed a good order starting with smaller tips on how to find jobs, ace job interviews etc before giving tips on how to progress through a company.

Even though I'm not in the place where I can apply most of these tips to a work place I still found this book to be extremely motivational. After reading this I felt very boosted to work harder at my blog, my Etsy and most importantly: university. I'm going to skim read through this book again and copy out the best tips into a notepad so that they're easier to find if I'm needing that little boost during the semester when I feel like I'm drowning in work.

I gave this book 4/5 stars and I think if you're interested in improving your career or are a blogger you may find this helpful, especially the social media aspects!

Coconut is definitely a hit or a miss with people when it comes to taste. Personally, I love it. And not only that, I love the scent. The smell of coconut feels so homey-y and comforting to me. I've tried minis from The Body Shop before and loved it. So when my granny bought me one of their coconut gift sets for Christmas I was really pleased. The set also included a shower gel, hand cream and body mist but in this review I'm going to be focusing on the coconut body butter and the coconut body scrub. For a reference the skin on my body can be very dry and itchy but most of the time is manageable and generally ok.

I've reviewed body butters from The Body Shop before and they are just the best. I've tried lots of different brands but I really don't think any are better than these ones. Yes they are expensive but if you can get them on sale or cheaper in a gift set then they are definitely worth the money. The body butter is really thick but spreads easily on the skin. Compared to a lot of other butters/lotions they are absorbed into the skin fairly quickly which doesn't leave you feeling greasy or wet, you can basically get dressed straight away after applying them. I also find that the moisturising effect of these body butters lasts two to three days, even with showering. I love body butters but I find having to apply them after every shower really tedious and will often forget to use them. Obviously this is something that will vary depending on your skin so if you have very dry skin you might not find that the moisturising effects last as long.

Unfortunately I'm not as big as a fan of their body scrubs. I do enjoy using them when I receive them as gifts but honestly I wouldn't buy one with my own money. I like my scrubs to be quite exfoliating. The Body Shop's offering is far too gentle in my opinion and doesn't contain enough 'bits'. My absolute favourite scrubs are from Soap & Glory and these scrubs just do not compare. That being said, it is nice for every day use and if you had more sensitive skin then this would maybe be good for you! Just because it doesn't work for me, doesn't mean it won't work for everyone.

Have you tried any of The Body Shop's scrubs or body butters? What's your favourite scent?

Hello everyone. I've picked out 6 of my favourite books of 2015 and I'm going to be sharing them. These are books that I read during 2015, not books that were written or published during the year! I did want to make this post 'my top 5 books of 2015' but I just couldn't narrow it down to 5! I've had a great year and read 56 books which personally I think is great. Before I used to read a lot faster but this year I think I really took my time with the books that I read which meant that I really savoured reading them. Hopefully I'll follow suit in 2016!

The Apple Tart Of Hope by Sarah Moore Fitzgerald - This book is just adorably sweet. It has a sort of magical realism aspect to it and the whole thing is very dreamy. It's very hard to describe but I don't think I've ever read anything like this and I am so glad that I decided to buy it. I'm not actually going to discuss its plot as I just find that some books are better if you start reading them without knowing what they are about. Just trust me and read this book.

The Opposite Of Loneliness by Marina Keegan - This was one of the books from our #sassybooks book club and you can see by full post about the book here. This is a collection of short stories and essays. It was the first non fiction book I'd read in a while and it was very refreshing. Of course there were some parts that I didn't enjoy but on the whole I really enjoyed this book and it's definitely one I'd recommend.

All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doeer - This is probably the best world war two novel that I've read since The Book Thief. And that's saying a lot because I bloody loved The Book Thief. This book is about two children growing up during WW2. A young blind girl who is forced to evacuate Paris and a German orphan who is put up through the Hitler Youth due to his talents in fixing radios. It was really touching and the writing style was so beautiful and descriptive. Read my full review here.

Only Ever Yours by Louise O'Neill - How awkward is it that I've mentioned 3 #sassybooks reads in a row? Well we seem to have really good taste. That's why you should join in with the book club ;). This was a totally amazing book. It's set in a futuristic world where women are bred and brought up in a school where they compete to get the spots as wives, the others are made into 'concubines'. It raises a lot of serious issues and I couldn't stop thinking about it. I think everyone should read this book and I will definitely be reading everything Louise O'Neill writes. Full post about this book can be read here.

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness - This book made me cry in Edinburgh Waverley Station. It's about a young boy who's mum has cancer. The idea was thought up by a writer, Siobhan Dowd, who unfortunately died of cancer before she could finish the book. Patrick Ness took over and completed the book so that Siobhan's story could be told. It's incredibly sad but it makes you value what you have. I saw Patrick Ness speak about this book at the 2014 Edinburgh Book Festival and I think hearing him speak about it before I read it really improved my reader experience.

Fish Out Of Water by Natalie Whipple - In this book the central character's estranged grandmother shows up. The family hasn't kept in contact with her as she is racist and wasn't happy about her son marrying an Asian woman. But she now has alzheimers and seemingly no where else to go so they take her in. This was a really heartwarming read and I really enjoyed it. I originally wasn't going to put this one in but when I looked back on it I could leave it out! Read my full review here.

Have you read any of these books? Hopefully I'll read some even better ones in 2016.

Hello everyone! Time for my December Reading Wrap Up! This means that I've been doing my wrap ups for a solid two years now. I really enjoy writing them and they always get a good response so would just like to say a little thank you to you all for reading them! This month I read four books and started some others. I have officially read 56 books this year. My goal was to read 52 books ie one book a week. So I'm really chuffed at meeting that goal! For 2016 I have set my goal to be the same but it might be a busier year, I won't be disappointed if I don't make it. I've read some amazing books this year and really feel like I took my time whilst reading and savoured the books as I was reading them. So I'll stop rambling now and get onto my reviews of the four books I read this month:

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler - This was a very interesting read. There's a massive plot twist that I didn't see coming and after it my perspective on the book completely changed. The whole thing is a bit of a 'mind fuck' for lack of a better phrase. I borrowed this off of my friend and we both agreed that we thought it was a really good book but that we didn't necessarily enjoy reading it. It's very cryptic and I found that I couldn't put it down but didn't really like the narrating character! I gave this 3/5 stars. I've thought about it a lot but to be honest I'm still not sure if I liked this book or not.

Yes Please by Amy Poehler - I was really excited to read this book as I find Amy Poehler absolutely hilarious. This was a really fun and honest autobiography. Amy just writes exactly how she speaks and it gives a really chatty and informal vibe which I really enjoyed. Like most autpbiographies there were some parts I really enjoyed and some that I found a little bit boring but overall I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it. I gave it 4/5 stars, definitely one of my favourites that I've read.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan - This was my reread of the month and to be honest I was a little disappointed. I'm normally a big John Green fan but to be honest I found this book to be a little dull. I didn't get too attached to either of the main characters and I didn't feel like a lot happened over the course of the book. Which is a real shame. Maybe when I read it for the first time(three years ago) I was a lot less mature so didn't pick up on a lot of things. The first time I read this I gave it 5/5 stars but this time I gave 3/5 and I think that was me being generous.

Leave Your Mark by Aliza Licht - This is a sort of 'career and social media self help book'. I first heard of it when Charlotte suggested it for our #sassybooks book club. We decided against it as the Kindle version is quite expensive and we like to use the cheapest books possible so as many people can join in! I really did enjoy this. Even though I've not reached the career stage of my life there were a lot of points here that I can apply to university and my part time job. I felt a little bit that the conversations between people felt a little bit fabricated. I don't want to write too much about this as I'm planning on posting a full review but overall I enjoyed this book and rated it 4/5 stars.

Also a little book related announcement. Charlotte and I are trying to reboot Sassy Books. We haven't been as on top of it as we would have liked to have been but between Charlotte's surgery and my exams we both haven't been blogging very much. We didn't have a book for December and to be honest I haven't even finished November's. I'm going to draw a line under this. We are starting back on it with our book for January - Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. This can be bought on Amazon here. This looks super interesting and people responded well to the last non fiction novel. If you'd like to join in read the book and write a review/tweet your opinion before or on the last Tuesday of the month(January 26th) using #sassybooks. Would be great to involve as many of you as possible!

Did you read any good books this month? To keep up with what I'm reading add me as a friend on GoodReads here.

New year, new me right? Well, no. Not exactly. Whilst I do like to make resolutions I'm still not convinced that I will totally change as a person between 23:59 December 31st and 00:01 January 1st. Everyone is different but I find goals to be extremely motivating. I'm always writing little to do lists and I find that if I have it written down, normally I'll do it. Even posting goals on my blog is motivational as I feel like once I've clicked publish and everyone's read it then I kind of really need to do it. So these are some goals I've made for myself for the new year. I'm not going to put a tonne of pressure on myself to complete them all but I think it's fun to have them and they do give me that bit of boost.

1. Book a holiday. Before I went to Geneva in September I hadn't been on holiday abroad for about 3 years. I really enjoyed myself and I mostly managed to do the trip on the cheap so there's no excuse not to go again. My family are going to the Isle of Arran again at Easter but I would like to book another trip to go abroad this year. I have family in Canada that I would like to visit. However that would be very expensive so I'd be happy to take a smaller trip to somewhere in Europe.

2. Don't let others influence decisions that only affect me. I've been thinking a lot recently about some decisions that I'm going to have to make within the next few weeks. Confrontation is not my strong point and I'm far too easily influenced by other people because I don't want to disappoint them. This year I need to put myself first because these decisions will effect only me so my decision should concern only me.

3. Focus on quality rather than quantity when it comes to blog posts. I'm not saying that people who blog every day don't produce amazing content. But over the last semester I've realised that I'm not going to have as much time for blogging as I would like. So I want to focus on blogging less but producing longer and more well thought out blog posts.

4. Create more of my own crochet patterns. My Etsy has been fairly successful since I opened it in April. I am very happy with this but recently I've noticed that the majority of the traffic on the store comes from the basket pattern that I have for sale rather than the actual finished items. So this year I would like to branch out with my crocheting a bit more and try and design a few more patterns. I feel like having more patterns for sale would really boost my Etsy as they seem to perform better than physical items for sale.

5. Optimise my posts for Pinterest. I have a larger following on Pinterest than I do on any other platform. But I could still be doing much more to optimise my blog posts for sharing on Pinterest. If I tried hard enough I think I could make it a really big traffic source for my blog. I want to do this by including better photos in my blog posts that are portrait rather than horizontal and contain text overlays where appropriate. There are some older posts that I've written that I think would do well on Pinterest with better photos so I want to go through my archives and update some of these older posts too.

6. Read 52 books(ie one book a week). This pace worked well for me and I would like to carry this reading goal forwards into 2016. Obviously there will be weeks when I'm so busy and don't read at all but I tend to catch up with myself over the holidays and such when I have much more time. As usual I also want to keep up with blogging about the books that I read as I enjoy doing this so much.

7. Reach 3'000 Twitter followers. I used to be gaining twitter followers at a really fast pace but it seems to have slowed down so much. In 2016 I would like to try and really grow my Twitter following. Maybe even more than my blog following. I've realised that a lot of my tweets are about being really tired or moaning about my 4 hours of consecutive lectures and no one wants to read that! So my plan for growing my following is to post more positive content and to try to interact more with other bloggers through things like chats. If you'd like to help me out early then you can follow me on Twitter @whathayleydid ;)

So those are the 7 goals I would like to stick to before 2017 comes around. I'm not too strict when it comes to goals like these as I find them to just be a bit of fun. I'll put my all into them and if they don't all work out then no harm done!

Have you written any goals for the new year? I wish you all the best with them!